Total area
301 340 sq. km
Population
9 236 213 (2021)
Conditional reduction of currency
EUR
Climate, average max and min t°
Predominantly Mediterranean; Alpine in far north; hot, dry in south; avg. maximum temperature (July) +24°; avg. minimum temperature (January) 0°
Time difference from Moscow
- 1 hours
Ethnic groups
Italian (includes small clusters of German-, French-, and Slovene-Italians in the north and Albanian-Italians and Greek-Italians in the south)
History
Italy became a nation-state in 1861 when the regional states of the peninsula, along with Sardinia and Sicily, were united under King Victor EMMANUEL II. An era of parliamentary government came to a close in the early 1920s when Benito MUSSOLINI established a Fascist dictatorship. His alliance with Nazi Germany led to Italy's defeat in World War II. A democratic republic replaced the monarchy in 1946 and economic revival followed. Italy was a charter member of NATO and the European Economic Community (EEC). It has been at the forefront of European economic and political unification, joining the Economic and Monetary Union in 1999. Persistent problems include illegal immigration, organized crime, corruption, high unemployment, sluggish economic growth, and the low incomes and technical standards of southern Italy compared with the prosperous north.
Executive branch
Head of Government: Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. Government: Council of Ministers proposed by the Prime Minister and nominated by the President of the Republic.
Legislative branch
Bicameral Parliament (Parlamento) consists of the Senate (Senato della Repubblica) and the Chamber of Deputies (Camera dei Deputati)
Judicial branch
Constitutional Court (Corte Costituzionale); Supreme Court of Cassation (Corte Suprema di Cassazione)
Unemployment
19,1% (2020)
GDP per capita rank
34 (2020)
Corruption perceptions index rank
56 (2021)
